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erin_oriordan_is_reading_again 's review for:
The Count of Monte Cristo [Abridged]
by Alexandre Dumas
4.5 stars, really. I got a little bored in the middle, with some of the chapters that had a lot of financial dealings, but overall this classic is a sheer delight. Only after I'd checked it out of the library did I realize that I'd gotten an abridged version. I wish I'd read the unabridged one, because I didn't get the full "Prince Andrea Cavalcanti is secretly the illegitimate son of Monsieur de Villefort and Madame Danglars; they both believed he was dead" storyline.
Because I saw the movie based on Jay Wolpert's highly entertaining screenplay before I read the book, I can't help but feel that it would have been better had the Count and Mercedes had ended up together. There's no reason they couldn't have; he was single and her husband was dead. Instead he (presumably) married Haydee, which (despite being quite romantically written) seems a bit odd since a) she was his adopted daughter and b) he bought her to keep her out of the slave trade. Could a man really have an equal relationship with a woman he'd raised since she was eleven years old, a woman who considered him her rescuer? It probably didn't seem as strange to Dumas, since his grandmother had been a slave. Edmond and Mercedes were the same age, grew up together and wouldn't have a power imbalance in their relationship. That Edmond ended up with the 18-year-old instead seems like a male fantasy, but I suppose that's the author's prerogative. So, in conclusion, I love both the book and the movie, but in slightly different ways. I won't be unhappy if someone, somewhere, has written the erotica mash-up a la [b:Jane Eyre Laid Bare: The Classic Novel with an Erotic Twist|15794594|Jane Eyre Laid Bare The Classic Novel with an Erotic Twist|Eve Sinclair|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346068821s/15794594.jpg|21495890].
Because I saw the movie based on Jay Wolpert's highly entertaining screenplay before I read the book, I can't help but feel that it would have been better had the Count and Mercedes had ended up together. There's no reason they couldn't have; he was single and her husband was dead. Instead he (presumably) married Haydee, which (despite being quite romantically written) seems a bit odd since a) she was his adopted daughter and b) he bought her to keep her out of the slave trade. Could a man really have an equal relationship with a woman he'd raised since she was eleven years old, a woman who considered him her rescuer? It probably didn't seem as strange to Dumas, since his grandmother had been a slave. Edmond and Mercedes were the same age, grew up together and wouldn't have a power imbalance in their relationship. That Edmond ended up with the 18-year-old instead seems like a male fantasy, but I suppose that's the author's prerogative. So, in conclusion, I love both the book and the movie, but in slightly different ways. I won't be unhappy if someone, somewhere, has written the erotica mash-up a la [b:Jane Eyre Laid Bare: The Classic Novel with an Erotic Twist|15794594|Jane Eyre Laid Bare The Classic Novel with an Erotic Twist|Eve Sinclair|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346068821s/15794594.jpg|21495890].